Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
Michael called me at 2:13 in the morning.
I knew his breathing before he spoke.
“Rachel.”
Every part of me froze.
Ethan was across the room instantly.
I put the call on speaker.
“You’re alive.”
Silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
I hated him and loved him in the same heartbeat.
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I had to.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Victor believed I knew where you were.”
“You did!”
“I never told him.”
Ethan stepped closer.
“Michael.”
Another silence.
“Ethan.”
The brothers had not spoken in almost a year.
Ethan’s voice remained quiet.
“You better have a very good reason.”
“I found Dad’s files.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
“What files?”
“The fertility project.”
Michael explained that their father, Patrick Callahan, had not created the project.
He had discovered it.
Victor was using stolen genetic material from powerful families to create children who could later be used for inheritance claims, blackmail, or political leverage.
Patrick tried to shut it down.
Victor killed him.
Ethan’s face became stone.
Their father’s supposed heart attack had been murder.
Michael continued.
“I faked my death because Victor found me.”
“Where are you now?” Ethan asked.
“I’m coming in.”
“No.”
“I have evidence.”
“Send it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the only copy is physical.”
I interrupted.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
His voice cracked.
“Because once you knew Sophie wasn’t mine, Victor would know too.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you love me?”
“That part was real.”
I hated that answer because I believed it.
He gave Ethan a meeting location.
An abandoned church on the South Side.
Ethan refused to let me go.
I went anyway.
Michael was waiting inside.
Alive.
Thinner.
Scar across his cheek.
He looked at Sophie and broke.
“Oh, God.”
I held her closer.
He did not approach.
“Hi, Soph.”
His voice shook.
She stared at him like a stranger.
Because he was.
Michael handed Ethan a black ledger.
“Everything is here.”
Names.
Doctors.
Payments.
Patients.
Children.
Then Michael looked at me.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Your mother didn’t choose you randomly.”
I felt cold.
“She knew Ethan’s sample had been selected.”
“So?”
Michael looked at Ethan.
Then at me.
“Rachel, your father once worked for Patrick Callahan.”
“My father died when I was five.”
“No.”
Michael swallowed.
“He disappeared.”
I stared.
“Who was he?”
Michael answered:
“Gabriel Morales.”
Ethan went pale.
Because he knew the name.
May you like
And then he said:
“Gabriel Morales was the man convicted of trying to kill my father.”
